New York (State). Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. Litigation Support Services.

The controversy over inhumane conditions and treatment of residents at the Willowbrook State School (aka Willowbrook Developmental Center), a residential facility for the developmentally disabled on Staten Island, brought national attention to the status and rights of the mentally retarded. The School opened in 1938 and, after serving as a military hospital during World War II, was used as a facility for the severely mentally retarded, including clients transferred from other state schools. The School had the highest percentage of black and Hispanic residents of any state school and was the only school to accept children under age 5.

In the early 1970s, the publicized overcrowding and other conditions at Willowbrook by parents, facility employees, civil rights attorneys, and television reporter Geraldo Rivera lead to a class action suit in 1972 which was brought on behalf of the more than five thousand residents alleging numerous civil rights violations (New York State Association for Retarded Children, Inc. v. Rockefeller). Based on evidence presented when the suit was filed, the court granted immediate relief through a preliminary injunction ordering such steps as the hiring of staff and physical repairs to buildings to alleviate poor conditions at the facility.

In 1975, the State and the plaintiffs negotiated a court-approved Consent Decree with more than thirty pages of actions, standards and practices that the State would take or meet. A court-appointed Office of Special Master and Professional Advisory Board oversaw implementation of the Decree, while the State broke up the former Department of Mental Hygiene, established the separate Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD) in 1978 and prepared to close Willowbrook and other institutions in favor of community residential placement wherever possible. The U. S. District Court issued a final Stipulation and Order in 1987 to close the litigation once its requirements, including placement of class action members, were met. Since 1993, the agency no longer reports to the court on the class members, although it continues to adhere to requirements of the final Order including conducting audits to verify compliance with those requirements.

In the years since the litigation, Willowbrook clients were deinstitutionalized or transferred to other OMRDD facilities, notably the Staten Island and Sunmount Developmental Disabilities Services Offices (DDSOs). The Litigation Support Services unit, an affiliate of the OMRDD Counsel's Office, monitors continued agency implementation of the Consent Decree and final Order and its requirements affecting class members including the lifetime monitoring of the several thousand Willowbrook residents who were members of the class action lawsuit (the "Class of 1972"). Because of the young age of some class members, the agency anticipates that such monitoring may continue to 2040s or more. The unit is formally part of the New York City Regional Office, although it is located in Albany and has statewide responsibilities inasmuch as former Willowbrook residents are now located across New York in agency facilities and community residences.

From the description of Willowbrook litigation support files, 1972-1986. (New York State Archives). WorldCat record id: 84673411